The blog about various sorts of all things bullshit that may be of interest to you...
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Monday, July 5, 2010

Suck My Ass 3-D Part 2: Video Games

The gimmick of 3-D may be all the rage in the movie world as of right now and in the near future, but that isn't the only medium in which it's making an impact...

Yup folks...the world of video games will soon be besieged by the 3-D juggernaut, but unlike the effect that 3-D has had on the film industry, the effect that it will have on the video game world remains to be seen, and hotly debated as well.

First off, let's go back to those simple days of the classic 8-bit Nintendo Entertainment System. That gray box that sent many kids into asthma attacks from blowing dust out of the cartridge and inside cartridge port had its own meeting with 3-D technology, granted it was nowhere near as technologically savvy as it appears to be today. A little racing game called "Rad Racer" had a feature to play the game in 3-D, which was kind of a cool thing when you were a 6 year old kid, but was little more than an experimental extra at best.

Fast forward to today, and only a few weeks ago at E3. For those who don't know, E3 is a massive video game and tech expo where publishers and developers show off their big-name upcoming games, projects, and console releases. Nintendo revealed that their upcoming new handheld, the "3DS", will provide gamers on the go with a realistic 3-D experience. While the tech demo was impressive and those in attendence sang Nintendo's praises, this isn't the first time that Nintendo had dipped their hands in anything with the term "3-D" slapped on it...

I'm going to be showing my age here, but I remember being in my pre-teens when Nintendo announced the "Virtual Boy", a supposedly portable headset-esque unit that featured games in "true 3-D" glory. Well, I can tell you from personal experience, the thing was a giant steaming pile of cowshit. The thing being portable was a joke, the headset was awkward to use, and the colors of the games were in heavy black & red, which didn't take long to hurt your eyes. Seriously, after 10 minutes of playing, you'll feel like your eyes are going to fucking explode! It lasted on the market for less than a year before Nintendo decided to pull the plug, and gamers were all the better off for it.

...anyway, to get back on topic, perhaps Nintendo has learned their lesson about "3-D gaming". The technology has vastly improved over anything offered in the mid-90's, and Nintendo has had a flawless track record with their portable game systems (minus the "Virtual Boy", but I don't even consider the piece of shit anything close to portable), but could that translate to console success as well? Rumors are circulating ridiculously that Nintendo is hard at work on the successor to their mega-popular "Wii", and that it will utilize unique games that are not only 3-D capable, but utilize 3-D in every sense to be able to be played. Could it actually work?

Nintendo isn't the only video game company hopping on the 3-D bandwagon however. A few days ago when I fired up my PS3, it informed me that I had to download the new firmware update. After I did, I learned that this update is to make 3-D elements possible in compatable PS3 games and Blu-Ray discs alike. Not to mention the fact that Sony is fully behind these new lines of 3-D televisions that have recently hit the market. Besides carrying a price tag that for the time being requires you to practically lay down a mortgage payment to afford, the fancy new 3-D glasses required cost an average of 300 bucks a piece.

Now the first thing that popped up in my head after learning all that is pretty much along the lines of "how in the holy fuck could anyone seriously afford all that shit?!". Regardless of one's income and how much they can spend on their entertainment purposes, the bottom line remains that this influx of new tech with big price tags will either crash & burn, or eventually end up becoming the norm in the long run. Think not? It wasn't all that long ago that only those with seemingly bottomless pockets could afford HDTV's, but now they've practically become the norm for household television entertainment. Will it be that long before having a bombardment of shit flying at your face while you sit on your couch become the norm?

Or shit, how about how long will it be before 3-D gets translated from movies and video games to stuff like NFL games ("watch guys break each other's legs and slap each other's asses in 3-D!") or even porn (insert your own quote here, regardless though, you'll probably feel the need to dodge your head from various sorts of "incoming fire", lol) or just about anything else considered in the realm of digital entertainment?

No matter what happens folks, 3-D seems to be making a big impact on the digital entertainment realm, but whether or not all of us end up taking a bite out of the big 3-D gimmick shit sandwich remains to be seen...

...or we can all just down a nice, tall, frosty glass of fuck 3-D in the ass, but that's just my thought...